At approximately 2:15 p.m., a 1997 Toyota Camry hydroplaned off Highway 44 East of Rolla. Driver, Liana Bustamante, and passenger, Alexis Stevens, survived the crash with minor contusions. The two were taken to Sullivan Baptist Hospital.
The official accident report covered the basics, but the experience was so much more. You never think that something so serious could happen to you, until it does. We were driving down the highway, singing along to the Sound of Music, and Liana asked me to open her beef stick. And then, we were being jerked to the side, and I could see all the car we had passed in the lane beside us. I heard Liana scream my name, and I think I screamed hers. I remember fragments of what happened after that.
I remember the darkness of when we rolled onto the hood of the car, and the crunch of metal and glass. I remember the light of when we rolled onto our tires, and the silence that came with it. I remember throwing my arms over my face before we rolled back over our side. I remember glass cutting into my skin, and then the silence. We had landed on our tires on a road beside the highway.
Liana asked me if I was okay. I told her I was, and asked her the same question. I didn't wait for her response before looking for my phone. It was sitting in a cup next to me to amplify the sound since her radio wasn't working. I needed to call my mom. I didn't think about calling an ambulance, I just needed to call my mom. I heard children singing in the back seat, the Sound of Music was still playing. I reached back to grab my phone, and that's when the awareness hit me.
Everything hurt. There was glass in my clothes, in my shoes, in my hair. There were people coming up to the car who had stopped to help us. I heard one of them say they called an ambulance. I'm pretty sure I was still in shock at that point.
I grabbed my phone as someone told Liana to turn the engine off. She grabbed her phone to call her mom as well. I was shaking as I dialed my moms number, and the shock started to subside.
"Hello?" I drew in a shaky breath.
"Mom?" I held back a sob.
"Alex? What's wrong?" I couldn't hold back any longer.
"Mom? Mom, we got into an accident," I sobbed. I cried as I tried to answer her questions. She told me she was on her way before she hung up. A woman walked up to my window. She told me she was a nurse, and needed to see where the bleeding was coming from. As she looked over me, I noticed a man walking down the small hill we rolled down. He had a few bags in his hands, and I realized he was kind enough to pick up our things that had fallen out of the car.
I must have been in a daze, because the next thing I knew the paramedics had arrived, and my grandfather was calling me. He was asking me questions I couldn't answer, so I asked the paramedic that was attending me if he would talk to him. As the two were talking, the other paramedic finished checking Liana over, and came over to check on me. I told her my wrist hurt, and she helped me take off my watch. I told her my neck was sore, and she lightly probed the area with her fingers.
They kept asking if we wanted to go to the hospital. We had no idea, and we told her our parents were on their way. She asked us how old we were, and when we told her seventeen she said we had no choice. Since we were minors, we had to be taken to the hospital. They put a neck brace on me, and put me on a stretcher. As they put us into the ambulance, I noticed the fire and police department were there too.
They took us to Sullivan Baptist Hospital, and I asked the paramedics questions. They had put a heart monitor on my finger, and asking questions about it was the only way to get my mind off what happened. When we got to the hospital, they took me off to get a CT of my neck and spine, and an x-ray of my wrist.
Before the CT started, the technician reached over to pull something out of my hair. It was a clump of dirt and grass. The rest of our time there was a blur. Liana and I were in a room together after my tests, and I kept making jokes. I don't handle serious situations very well. I told Liana it was the last time I wanted to "roll with my home-girl", and I'm pretty sure she almost hit me.
Our parents arrived fairly soon after that, and we went home.
The accident report summed everything up nicely, but made it appear as though everything happened in a few minutes. To me, it felt as though it lasted the entire day. It's a shocking realization that something can happen so quickly and can effect you for so long.
At 2:15 p.m. on Friday May 15, 2015, everything changed for me, and can't be summed up in an accident report.
